The best candidates for onboard weighing are not new trucks on an order sheet, they are the air suspension trucks already in your yard. On-board truck scales for air suspension are aftermarket by nature: the suspension provides the sensing medium, so the retrofit adds only the reading layer. This guide is the complete fitting walkthrough for AirRide Scale, from checking your truck qualifies through to the first calibrated weigh, with the practical details fitters ask about along the way.
First: confirm the truck qualifies
The single requirement is suspension type. Every axle group you want to weigh must ride on air bag (air ride) suspension, because the system reads load through air spring pressure. Walk the truck: drive axles on air bags with a height control valve qualify; steel or taper leaf spring groups do not, and no onboard air system can change that. Most highway tractors and trailers in the USA, Canada, the UK and Europe run air on the drives and trailer groups, and many on the steer arrangement too. Mixed configurations are fine: weigh the air groups and the system reports those, which for most compliance questions is exactly the detail you need. The underlying mechanism is explained in how air bag suspension scales work.
What arrives in the kit
- Wireless RF sensors, one per air bag position on each weighed group, two per group where dual height control valves split the circuit.
- The AirRide Air Link hub, the collector that receives every sensor by RF and relays calibrated weights to your phone by Bluetooth. One hub serves the whole combination, tractor and trailer, up to 16 sensors.
- Mounting hardware and air fittings for a tidy, leak free connection into each bag circuit.
- The app, free on iOS and Android, which is the display, the calibration tool and the diagnostics screen in one.
The retrofit, step by step
Step 1, position the sensors. Mount a sensor at each air bag location on the weighed groups, secured away from moving parts and road strike. Step 2, route the air lines. Tee each sensor cleanly into its bag circuit and prove the joints leak free, because any leak reads as a soft, drifting group. Step 3, connect the Air Link. Mount the hub, power it from the vehicle, and watch each sensor report in. Step 4, pair and calibrate. Connect your phone by Bluetooth, then calibrate each axle group against a known weight on level ground. A certified weighbridge ticket from your next loaded run is the ideal reference, and the calibration guide details the procedure. A competent fitter completes the lot in a working day, and the fuller version of these steps lives in the sensor installation guide.
Fitter’s tip: photograph each sensor position and label the groups in the app as you go. Six months later, when a yard incident claims one sensor, the swap and re check takes minutes instead of an afternoon of archaeology.
Retrofitting the trailer, and why you should
A tractor only installation answers the steer and drive questions, but the trailer carries the payload, and the kingpin transfers weight between trailer and drives with every pallet placed. Sensoring the trailer groups completes the picture: full combination weights, true balance, and compliance on the groups most likely to be cited. Because calibrations live with the equipment, drop and hook operations keep working: the sensored trailer reads true behind any tractor. The trailer side is covered on the trailer scales page and in depth in the complete trailer scales guide.
Day one to year five
The first week establishes the habits: weigh while loading, confirm legal status before rolling, note how the real numbers compare with the old guesses. The first month pays for a sanity check against a certified scale and any calibration touch up. From there the system is quiet: sealed sensors run years on their batteries, the app’s diagnostics name any dropped sensor instantly, and the only scheduled attention is recalibration after suspension work. When something does read oddly, the fix order is always the same, sensors, air pressure, calibration, configuration, per the troubleshooting guide.
The economics of retrofitting versus waiting
Some fleets defer onboard scales to the next truck order, imagining a factory option solves it. The arithmetic disagrees: the retrofit costs the same whether the truck is new or five years old, the payback clock starts the day it is fitted, and the public scale spend it replaces, detailed in our cost comparison, continues every week you wait. On-board truck scales for air suspension are one of the rare upgrades where the oldest truck in the fleet earns the same return as the newest.
Scope note: this is a compliance and loading system for air suspension vehicles, not a certified trade scale, and it is deliberately priced and designed for retrofit at fleet scale.
Start with one
Pilot a single truck and trailer: fitted in a day, weighed on every load for a month, checked once against a certified scale. The decision tends to make itself. Specifications are on the product page, the broader case on truck scales, and a pilot unit is one enquiry away.
Common retrofit questions, answered quickly
Does the installation void anything? No: sensors tee into the air circuit with standard fittings and the suspension operates exactly as before. Can the system move to another truck later? Yes, sensors and hub unbolt and recalibrate on the new vehicle in an afternoon, which matters to owner operators who re spec. What about lift axles? Weigh with the lift in the same position you calibrated in, matching how enforcement will weigh you. Will winter kill the sensors? They are sealed for underbody life, salt spray included, and the app’s diagnostics expose any unit that does take a fatal hit. Do leased trailers qualify? Mechanically yes, though check your lease terms on fitted equipment; many fleets sensor their owned trailers first and let the results argue for the rest. And the question behind every retrofit, is it worth doing on an older truck, answers itself: payback follows weighing frequency, not vehicle age.
The bottom line: if your trucks ride on air, they are one day’s fitting away from weighing themselves. On-board truck scales for air suspension turn the fleet you already own into a fleet that never guesses its weight.
